Circular Gallifreyan

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Introduction

Gallifreyan is the language spoken by the Time Lords of Gallifrey from the British TV show Doctor Who.

The Time Lords are a time-aware species capable of traveling through time and space who have taken upon themselves to protect the Web of Time from other time traveling species.

This is a fan created language made for the fans without any intention to be legally bound or profiting from it.


Phonology

Consonants

Bilabial Labio-Dental Dental Alveolar Post-Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Labio-Velar Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal
Nasal m n ɳ ɲ
Plosive p / b t / d ʈ ɟ k / g ʔ1
Fricative ɸ v θ s / z ʃ ç χ ħ2 ɦ
Affricate t͡s t͡ʃ / d͡ʒ ʈʂ q͡χ
Lateral approximant l ʎ
Approximant ɹ j w ɰ
Thrill ʙ3 r
Implosive ɠ
Blends: qy
  1. a) Only between or before vowels. b) For cases markers.
  2. Only between or before consonants
  3. Used when b is before any vowel at the beginning of a word, allophone of /b/

Vowels

Front Near-Front Central Back
Close i u
Near-Close ʏ
Close-mid e / ẽ ɘ o
Open-mid œ
Open a / ã ɑ / ɒ

Epenthesis

Elision

Consonant Mutation

Devoicing

Aspirate Mutation

Prosthesis

Modern Gallifreyan has two forms of prosthesis:

r-

[r] is added if a word begins with a vowel after the 3rd singular and all plural possessives. Also for concepts about time after the preposition "in".

u-

The vowel [u] is added before words beginning with voiced fricatives [s] and [ʃ] when followed by another consonant.

skegletorah (language) — [uskegletorah]

Orthography

Circular Gallifreyan is mostly written in a series of interlocking circles. Each word is composed of other circles and a sentence is encapsulated by a yet bigger circle. A word is written inside a word denoter and each word goes inside a sentence paradigm, which will be explained later on.

Consonants

They are classified by consonant bases and then sub-divided by consonant add-ons.

Consonant parts.png

On the following table we have to the right the bases and on the top the add-ons. The straight line under the base symbols represents the word denoter and its relation with the bases:

Zero add-on.png
Dot add-on.png
Two dot add-on.png
Line add-on.png
Two line add-on.png
Circle add-on.png
Big circle add-on.png
Slash add-on.png
Semi circle add-on.png
Closed semi circle base.png
m b t d p ʈ
Inner open circle base.png
n ɳ ɲ
Inner circle base.png
k χ w g ɰ ɦ ɠ
Semi circle base.png
r q͡χ ɹ ħ rː͡χ ʙ
Broken semi circle base.png
ʃ t͡ʃ ʈʂ
Broken outer semi circle base.png
s z θ l t͡s
Open circle base.png
v ɸ
Under circle base.png
d͡ʒ qy ç ʎ j ɟ
Clean base.png
ʔ

Vowels

They are as well classified by a base called dot bases and these divided by directional lines. Each vowel is written along the consonant that comes before. If the word starts with a vowel or there are no consonants before the vowel is placed on the word denoter instead. On the table, the right column represents the dot bases and the top arrows the directional lines. The semi-circles on the right symbolize the consonant bases.


Prosody

Stress

Intonation

Phonotactics

Morphophonology

Morphology

Nouns

Adjectives

Verbs

Adverbs

Particles

Derivational morphology

Syntax

Constituent order

Noun phrase

Verb phrase

Sentence phrase

Dependent clauses

Example texts

Other resources